Day 1a of the MSPT (Mid-States Poker Tour) Grand Falls $1,110 Main Event drew 158 entries to kick things off, almost surpassing the tournament's $200,000 guaranteed prize pool with one flight still to go.

Plenty of players made their way to Grand Falls Casino, creating a room full of MSPT champs and Hall of Famers.

With chips flying and players dropping throughout the day, play tightened up after the final break and a full 15 levels were played until completion.

Once players put their chips into the bags, it was Ian Pearson who ended up leading the pack of 19 with an impressive 734,000.

Pearson started the final two levels just above the chip average before catching some steam at the end of the night while others falling out of contention as he continued to add to his stack until play concluded for the night.

MSPT regular Jon Hanner was able to find the second spot on the leaderboard, also due to a late-night heater as well. After coming back from the final break with a below average chip stack, Hanner was able to get hot at the right time and spun-up a 385,000 stack in the final the final levels of the evening.

Daryl Oppelt held his steam throughout the day and finished in a close third with 361,000, while Keith Doering (355,000), and John Cap (344,000) rounded out the top five stacks.

Others that advanced included Josh Matti (309,000), MSPT champ Mo Nuwwarah (286,000), MSPT Hall of Famer Umut Ozturk (265,000), and John McNee (221,000).

All who did not bag will have one more flight to try and do so, with that being held tomorrow Saturday, April 6th at 3:00 p.m. local time.

As usual, the live reporting team will be back at it then, so be sure to come back and see who else adds their name to Sunday's Day 2 roster.

MSPT Grand Falls Remaining Schedule